They might be using the information, but that doesn't mean the court system won't find it to be illegal.

Basically the best end result of this would be if MS, Google, et al. get hit with huge fines. Then pressure to stop or limit the programs would come from someone with real power over the US government.

Cause the top guy in the EU subsidiary, and every single person in the chain down to the guy who gave access to the US, would not mind spending time in jail? Either the top guy knows, or someone else is getting screwed, so someone is going to cover their ass and tell.

And they're all, more than likely, living in the Europe so the prospect of being wanted in the US versus being in jail in the EU should be an easy choice.

The EU Data Protection Directive is very specific on this issue; the hosting/cloud company can only locate the data in the US, or even transmit it there, if there is an explicit guarantee that the data has the same level of protection.

Basically yes, the US could use the Patriot Act to obtain protected EU data from US-based companies. And yes, the company would then have broken the EU directive and would face the courts.